


[FIC META] On Gender Roles, Relationship Roles, and Marriage Vows

by FanficAllergy, RoseFyre



Series: Hunger Games Metas [4]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: Fic Meta, Freudian Elements, Meta, Psychology, This is where we brain dump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 23:04:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8597224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanficAllergy/pseuds/FanficAllergy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoseFyre/pseuds/RoseFyre
Summary: An explanation of why the trio/triad/threesome of Katniss/Peeta/Gale actually could work and how we used psychology to justify porn.





	

**On Gender Roles, Relationship Roles, and Marriage Vows**

_ (or why the trio of Katniss/Peeta/Gale actually works psychologically in  [ Let Me Fly ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3209726/chapters/6981905) ) _

  
  


One of the things that we really had an interesting time writing about was the various roles each member of our trio took within the relationship, especially in regards to the vows they said at their toasting.  

 

Katniss and Gale is the obvious canon relationship because they start with a friendship.  However, while they could easily get into a relationship, it’s hard to keep them in one.  They’re too similar in all the wrong ways while too different in others.  They’re great friends.  They’d be lousy romantic partners without a lot of outside help or something distracting them from their problems.  It can be done, but maintaining characterization is difficult and often is very quick to go out the window, particularly in Katniss’s case.

 

Katniss and Peeta is obviously canon.  However, in canon, there are outside catalysts forcing them into a relationship.  Without those catalysts, Katniss never would have even seen Peeta as a possibility and Peeta never would have approached Katniss.  They would’ve been two ships passing in the night.  Also in canon, Peeta is the one who has to make the majority of the sacrifices for the relationship to work, and he’s the one who’s driving it to be healthy.  Katniss, if she hadn’t had Haymitch, would have never been able to establish, let alone resurrect, her relationship with Peeta.

 

Peeta and Gale wouldn’t happen in canon.  It’s the hardest to turn into a relationship without stuffing Katniss  [ into the Fridge ](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StuffedIntoTheFridge) .  And we didn’t want to do that.  Fridging your wimmen is bad, y’all.  Don’t do that.   

 

So that takes us to the vows, their roles, and how we envision the relationship in  [ Let Me Fly ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3209726/chapters/6981905) working.

 

  * _“Do you take me to be your husband?  To let me care for and keep you, to let me honor and cherish you, to let me protect and defend you, to provide and sacrifice for you, to love you and learn you for as long as we all shall live?”_



 

Gale is easy.  Gale is a guy’s guy.  He is the Captain America of the Hunger Games universe.  In the books, he hunts, he mines, and he fights.  He’s a stereotypical young adult super masculine boyfriend.  That was his role and we weren’t going to deviate from that.  

 

Gale is, also, in a very real sense, a catalyst.  He’s the one who wants change.  He’s the one who facilitates change.  Katniss is generally happy maintaining status quo - that’s actually her goal in the books.  Change scares her, because in her experience, change is a bad thing.  Gale, on the other hand, embraces change.  He sees a bridge and goes “the grass is greener on the other side,” whereas Katniss goes “there’s grass here and we have to cross that big scary bridge and there could be a troll underneath.”  Katniss does not embrace risk.  In the investing world, Katniss would be the person who put her money into savings bonds or under her mattress, while Gale would make or break on high risk emerging stocks and Peeta would put money in a 401K and/or hire a money manager.  So, in a very real sense, in order to have this whole story and ultimately relationship happen, we needed to have somebody who was willing to take a risk - and Gale was it.  

 

His vows reflect the role he feels he plays within their new family.  Gale is the protector.  The father.  The dude.  He shies away from traditionally feminine roles.  He is not a gatherer.  He is not a cook.  He builds things with his hands.  He fights.  And he fucks.  There’s a reason, out of the three of them, he had the most sexual experience.  But even there, he takes on a bit of a mentor role to both Katniss and Peeta.  Gale makes the first sex scene happen.  With Katniss, he gives her agency, but he’s still in charge.  And later, when it’s all three of them, he’s directing it.  But he’s not the head of the family.

 

  * _“ I offer myself to you to be your husband.  To love, honor and cherish you both through sickness and health, to keep and to comfort, to council and defend.  For as long as we all live.  Do you accept my heart?”_



 

Peeta, on the other hand, has been described as the  [ typical young adult girlfriend ](http://www.npr.org/sections/monkeysee/2013/11/25/247146164/what-really-makes-katniss-stand-out-peeta-her-movie-girlfriend) .  He bakes, he wants kids, he’s talkative, he’s sensitive, he likes to paint, he needs to be rescued, he’s a damsel in distress, and he’s insecure.  Peeta’s role in this relationship tends to be the role of “the woman.”  He’s the talker.  He’s the negotiator.  He’s the one who tends to think through scenarios and try to find a solution, rather than just acting immediately.  He’s the compromiser.  His needs are less important in his mind than those of his spouses.

 

And his vows reflect that.  Whereas Katniss asks “do you accept me?” and Gale asks, essentially, “do you accept my terms?” Peeta asks “do you accept my heart?”  Katniss offers herself, Gale offers his skills and abilities, and Peeta offers his emotions and feelings.  

 

Despite possessing a penis and a Y chromosome, Peeta takes the stereotypical female role in the relationship.  And by doing that, he shows that there is no shame and no stigma attached to that role.  He’s the housewife.  While Katniss and Gale go out hunting and gathering, Peeta stays home and cooks and cleans and makes the clothing.  But under no circumstances should you doubt his ability to protect and defend those people he cares about.  Peeta’s a mama bear.  He’s sweet and he’s cuddly, but when you piss him off, he’s one of the most dangerous things in the world.  We very deliberately stated that in an even fight between Gale and Peeta, Gale would lose.  That was intentional.  Peeta may be the woobie, but he’s an iron woobie.

 

What’s interesting is that both Gale and Katniss respect Peeta for the contributions he provides and know that the three of them wouldn’t work without him.  In canon, if you shoved Gale and Katniss into a relationship, it wouldn’t work.  Gale would demand and demand and Katniss would just shut down.  Basically, you’d end up with  [ Odyssey ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5383241) .  In the Hunger Games fandom, we call Katniss emotionally constipated, but in reality, both Gale and Katniss are.  The two of them don’t know how to communicate about emotional things.  They’re friends - good friends - but their friendship is based more off of mutual experiences rather than communication.  Katniss is not wrong when she says she’s not very good at friends.  Without Peeta there to facilitate it, and to actively work on it, all of Katniss’s romantic relationships would be essentially doomed.

 

  * _“I offer myself to be your wife.  To protect and provide, to love and cherish, so long as we all shall live.  Do you accept me?”_



 

So if Gale is the guy and Peeta is the girl… well, Katniss sort of straddles the two.  Katniss takes both male and female roles.  Her earliest traits in canon include being a hunter and her sister’s caretaker - the traditionally male and the traditionally female.  And in this story, she does the exact same thing.  She straddles the traditional male and female roles.  She’s a cook, but she’s a hunter.  She’s the girl physically, but mentally, she’s much more masculine.  She’s a gatherer, but she’s also an explorer.  She’s very much a combination of the two.

 

Her vows reflect that.  Her vows are both masculine and feminine, and they are deliberately the shortest.  She asks the boys to accept her as she is.  Katniss.  Both masculine and feminine.  She’s not going to play a stereotypical gender role.  She wants to be herself, and to her that is the most important thing.  

 

Not only do the boys accept that, they cede the alpha role to her.  She is the leader of their family.  She casts the deciding vote.  In fact, in many circumstances, her vote is the only vote that matters.  That’s not her being selfish.  That’s them choosing to let her be in control.  They know Katniss will do anything for her family and always puts the needs of her family ahead of her own.  All you need to do is look at the very first chapters of the book and you can see that.

 

In a very real way, Katniss offers the least to the relationship.  But without Katniss present, neither Gale nor Peeta would have a relationship with the other.  Katniss is necessary for this to work.  Neither boy would choose, with their social mores, to be in a homosexual relationship.  While we can see Peeta as being on the bisexual part of the sexuality spectrum, Gale strikes us as the straightest straight ever to straight.  But there’s always that one exception.  For Gale, risk taker that he is, Peeta is that exception.  It took him a long time to come to that conclusion, and his waffling on the subject very nearly cost him Peeta.  Gale doesn’t acknowledge what his heart is telling him unless the thing he wants is put in jeopardy.  It’s why he always seems to realize he loves someone right after he almost loses them.   

 

Katniss, like Gale, is straight.  It’s not an issue for her, but at the same time, acknowledging her own sexuality is pretty damn difficult.  The fact that she is a sexual being comes as a surprise to her.  Katniss, in a very real sense, tends to fall on the asexual spectrum.  She’s not a true asexual, but canon pre-Games Katniss would be totally happy never having a sexual connection with anybody.  As the story progresses, Katniss has become more in tune with her sexuality.  She’ll never desire anyone other than Gale or Peeta, but she absolutely loves having sex with those two.  She also doesn’t like the extra pressure of being the center of the relationship.  So in a very real sense, Gale and Peeta working out their issues eases a lot of the strain on her.  She doesn’t have to be the keystone anymore and the relationship is now more stable.  

 

In  [ Freud’s conception ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id,_ego_and_super-ego) , Gale would be the id, Katniss would be the superego, and Peeta would be the ego.  And we have, to some degree, tried to make sure we stayed true to that idea.  So when it came time to write their vows in  [ Brand New Breeze Chapter Ten: As We Break This Bread ](http://archiveofourown.org/works/3209726/chapters/9039682) , we made sure to keep each of their relationship, psychological, and sexuality roles in mind.  Then, as we explored their marriage as it grew and changed, we kept in mind just what the three wanted out of the marriage and how we could use that to form an equal triad.  Something that isn’t often seen in fanfiction.  

 

And that’s all we have to say about that.

 

For now...


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